But when Det. Ursula Watson met Stulce at the apartment to get the key, he answered the door in his bathrobe, then bolted the door behind her, she testified Friday.

“I was pretty scared,” Watson told aCollinCountyjury hearing testimony in the first of four sexual assault cases against Stulce.

The charges involve four women who were allegedly assaulted in separate incidents between 2008 and 2012.

In the case now being tried, a 38-year-old woman testified earlier this week that she was brutally assaulted by Stulce in June 2012 when she responded to a Craigslist ad to sublease his apartment.

After she contacted the McKinney Police Department, the jury was told that an undercover operation was launched in July 2012, with Det. Watson posing as a financially strapped woman who desperately needed a place to live.

After responding to his Craigslist ad, Watson testified that she and Stulce corresponded through emails and text messages in which he asked her to send him her photograph.

She told jurors that they met on July 11 and again on July 18, when she arrived at theMcKinneyapartment to get a key.

“He asked me, ‘How are we going to play house?” testified Det. Watson, who was secretly videotaping the encounter that was being monitored by team of law enforcement officers outside the apartment.

When Stulce grabbed Watson’s breast, she jumped up and said she was going to the bathroom, a signal for officers come in and arrest Stulce.

On cross examination by defense attorney Mitch Nolte, Watson testified that Stulce never made any sexual overtures to her during their initial encounter and that he told her several times that he didn’t think the arrangement between them would work out.

During her July 18 visit to his apartment, Watson also told jurors that Stulce unlocked the door after she told him that she “freaked out” when he locked it behind her.

Stulce, 41, faces two to 20 years if convicted of sexual assault, a second degree felony.

Lead prosecutor Ashley Keil is expected to call her final witness when the trial resumes at 9 a.m. Monday.

A woman told a Collin County jury Thursday that she feared for her life when she was repeatedly raped by a man she met after answering his Craigslist ad to sublease his apartment.

“I felt he was really capable of hurting me and not care,” she testified Thursday in the trial of Roger Allen Stulce Jr.

The 41-year-old McKinney man is on trial facing the first of four counts of sexual assault involving four women in incidents between 2008 and 2012.

He faces two to 20 years if convicted of the second-degree felony in this case.

Earlier, the 38-year-old woman had told the court that she agreed to rent Stulce’s apartment and started moving in. But she changed her mind after finding online information about his criminal history and warnings that he was a predator.

On June 25, 2012, she waited for him to leave the apartment so she could retrieve her belongings when he suddenly returned, the woman testified Thursday. She is not being named because The Dallas Morning News generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

She told the jury that Stulce violently raped her over several hours at the apartment. During breaks in the assaults, she said, he told her to order a pizza and they watched a movie and took a nap together.

The woman testified that she obeyed his orders out of fear. “He dominated me in a way that I can’t explain,” she said in response to questions from prosecutor Ashley Keil.

At one point, she noticed lighter fluid on the bar and thought, “I don’t want to burn to death,” she told jurors.

After Stulce left the apartment, she didn’t call 911 because “I just wanted it to go away. I didn’t want to tell anybody,” the woman testified.

On cross-examination by defense attorney Mitch Nolte, the woman told the jury that Stulce never threatened her with the lighter fluid and she didn’t try to escape. “I never tried to run,” she said.

Nolte also questioned the woman about her criminal record. She testified that she’s serving a two-year prison sentence that was imposed after she violated the terms of her probation for driving-while-intoxicated convictions.

She told jurors that she has had problems with alcohol and Ambien abuse and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Original post: Dec. 11, 2013 at 5:56 p.m.

A 41-year-old McKinney man is on trial this week, accused of using ads on Craigslist to lure women to his apartment where he would brutally rape them.

Roger Allen Stulce Jr., 41, faces four counts of sexual assault involving four different women on four different dates between 2008 and 2012. He and his defense attorney have chosen to have each case tried separately.

Stulce has pleaded not guilty.

This first case involves a 38-year-old woman who says she was assaulted in June 2012 in his McKinney apartment. The woman is not being identified because The Dallas Morning News generally does not name the victims of sex crimes.

The woman told jurors that she responded to an ad on Craigslist to sublease the apartment. But after they worked out a deal and she paid $400 for a half month’s rent, she became leery of him. She said she had searched his name, his phone number and his address online and found more ads about the apartment that were worded differently than the one she responded to. Some were about cleaning the apartment, while others mentioned that only women should respond.

The woman also testified outside the jury’s presence that she found evidence online of Stulce’s criminal past involving assault as well as comments on Craigslist from others warning people to stay away from Stulce because he was a predator and to not respond to his ads.

District Judge Benjamin Smith ruled that portion of her testimony was too prejudicial and that jurors could not hear those details. Jurors are also not aware of the other pending charges against Stulce.

The woman told jurors that she changed her mind about leasing from him. “He’s got something going on that I didn’t want to be a part of,” she said.

The woman testified that she had already moved some of her things to the apartment. She waited one evening until she saw him leave and then she went to retrieve her things.

Prosecutor Ashley Keil told jurors during opening statements that Stulce came back while the woman was there. He came inside the apartment and immediately attacked her, Keil said. Keil said the woman was raped repeatedly that night. Only when she stopped fighting and resisting did he lose interest, Keil said. Afterward, he forced her to take a shower and then clean the shower with disinfectant, Keil told jurors. As he left the apartment, Keil said Stulce told his victim, “Next time you’ll have to do better.”

Keil told the jury that evidence will show semen found on the woman is linked through DNA to Stulce.

“We ask that you find him guilty so there is not a next time for [this woman] or any other member of our community,” Keil told jurors.

Defense attorney Mitch Nolte told jurors that the terrible story they heard from the prosecutor wasn’t true. He said the woman had a history of mental illness and addiction. He told jurors Stulce and the woman had consensual sex, ordered pizza and watched a movie that night. Then they had more sex.

He said this case was all about mistakes and excuses from the defendant, the police and the prosecutors.

“I don’t know why she made up this story,” Nolte told jurors. “Perhaps this wasn’t the romantic encounter she hoped it would be.”

The woman’s testimony will resume Thursday.

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